Between Order and Randomness
by wizened cynic
Summary: An anthology of eclectic drabbles. GraceLuke, RyanJoan, FriedmanLukeLischak: pick your poison, baby.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **If I owned this show, I'm pretty sure it would end up on HBO.

**Warnings:** m/m slash, f/f slash, implied sex

**Notes:** This is a series of frabbles --- fucked up drabbles --- I wrote on Livejournal because I was so bored. People prompted me with a pairing, a scenario, a line of poetry, whatever, and I worked my magic. Some of the following have slash tendencies, and some of them are quite squicky. There. You've been warned.

**Dedication:** For my lovelies over on LJ. You know who you are, but to protect you from the abhorred masses, I will refrain from naming names.

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. rhapsody . **

It's like last summer again, only without the obligatory crying sessions in Dr. Dan's office. Joan's scalp tingles as Judith tugs on her hair, twisting it into a French braid. The door is locked, and Judith screams at her roommate to get lost when Kathleen knocks."Dr. Dan wants to know what we do in here all day," Joan tells Judith.

"Braiding each other's hair and lesbian experimentation," says Judith, who laughs at Joan's reaction. "I'm just kidding, JoJo. You're way too tense." She finishes the braid and secures it with an elastic.

Joan turns around and Judith is smiling so big, Joan reaches up and touches Judith's face with her finger.

Her skin is cold.

Joan wakes up crying.

o

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**. truth . **

If anybody asked Luke, he'd swear that he didn't mean to do it on purpose. It's not like he deliberately went out of his way to look.

It doesn't matter, because nobody is going to ask him, and even if someone does, Luke is never going to tell. (And even if he told, would anybody believe him? It would be his word against Kevin's, and when it comes down to jock versus geek, Darwinistic evolution has proved that the former will inevitably have the upper hand.)

What Luke saw is this: his older brother and his older brother's best friend, pressed up against the wall of the seniors' locker room, kissing.

It doesn't matter what Luke saw, because Kevin Girardi --- Prom King, Superstar, Golden Boy --- Kevin Girardi is not gay. He just isn't, so there's no point in talking about it.

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**. tension . **

Grace understands that Friedman is grieving over Judith, but she also understands that if he lets it slip out about her and Rocket Boy, she'll have no choice but to kill him. Her mother's just bought a new set of meat cleavers --- drunks are particularly susceptible to door-to-door salespeople --- and Grace looks forward to putting them to good use.

She keeps an eye on Friedman in school, an act which makes both of them squirm. "Look, Marge," he deadpans, "I know there's sexual tension between us, but you've got to think of Luke."

Grace slaps him upside the head. "Shut it, freakshow. I'm just making sure you keep your mouth shut. Do I make it clear, or do I have to tattoo it on you with this ballpoint pen?"

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**. savior . **

Adam used to imagine what it would be like with Jane. They would be nervous and it would be awkward but everything would turn out all right because he loved her and she loved him.

With Bonnie, it was just stupid. No thinking involved. Not enough, at least. They were nervous and it was awkward, and everything came crashing down after.

Ryan knows what he's doing. He knows what he wants, and he knows what Adam wants. Afterwards, he finger-combs Adam's hair lightly, whispering in small voices. He lets Adam in the way Jane never did, and Adam knows he can trust Ryan.

"Tell me Joan's secret," Ryan says. His breath is hot against Adam's ear, his words like a song.

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**. beatitudes . **

Lilly comes over Wednesday afternoons to go over the Catechism with Helen. They talk about the beatitudes, since it's too awkward to talk about Lilly's love life, now that she's dating Kevin.

Kevin comes home early from time to time, and Helen catches him sneaking smiles at Lilly. Helen pretends she doesn't see it, and braces for the day that Kevin will tell her that he and Lilly aren't seeing each other anymore.

Helen knows she will never lose Kevin. He is her son, her precious boy, and he was hers right from the start. She needs him; she's always known that.

Lilly is her Confirmation sponsor, but more than that, Lilly's her friend. It's lonely here in Arcadia, divorced from her former life in Chicago. Sometimes, Helen thinks she needs Lilly too.

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**. faith . **

At Gentle Acres, they give Joan something to help her sleep. It leaves Joan cotton-mouthed and dizzy, so she never takes it. She flits in and out of sleep every night, and in her dreams, she sees him again.

Once, he appears in his goth garb. She runs her hands on top of his hair and laughs when the spikes prickle her skin. She thumbs the silver stud in his nose and asks, "Did this hurt?" He smiles, but does not answer.

She wakes up, alone, her pillow encrusted with sweat and salt. She feels stupid now, because she knows he's not real. Like the tooth fairy, and, according to Grace, the Apollo moon landing.

It hurts more though, him being not real. Because Joan didn't believe in the tooth fairy, but Joan believed in God.

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(1/2)


	2. Chapter 2

**Warnings: **implied masturbation, non-consensual kissing

**Notes:** Here are the rest of the frabbles, making an even dozen. Those who asked have been given. I need a vacation.

* * *

**. grace .**

Grace is annoyed. She comes home for the holidays and finds a mini-version of herself in her house --- well, a version of herself who wears pigtails and obeys authoritarian rules.

Hannah is nine and she is Grace's mother's new best friend. Even _Joan_ thinks it's a bad idea to let a drunk babysit, even if it's only for two hours after Hebrew class on Thursdays.

"Actually, your mother is really good with her," her father says, and there's a sliver of hope so naked in his voice that Grace wants to grab his words and drown them in a bucket of reality. It's true though; Sarah is great with Hannah.

Grace watches her mother with her young friend, and she knows that Sarah will break the little girl's heart one day. This is also true, but this is the part that people don't see.

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**. daymare .**

It has become an exercise in determination rather than pleasure.

Friedman carries on, ignoring the shouts for him to get out of the bathroom. He closes his eyes and desperately thinks of something, someone, some kind of mathematic formula.

Combinatorics . . . Marie Curie . . . Luke's sister in her underwear, in that picture of hers . . . Luke . . . Luke? What the hell, _Luke_?

To his horror, it _works_, but somehow Luke morphs into Lischak, and suddenly, his physics teacher has her lips on his neck. "Newton never got this kind of treatment," she murmurs, slipping her hand under his shirt.

Friedman skips class the next day.

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**. geometry .**

Rocks are usually for throwing, but for some reason, Grace keeps this one on the shelf near her bed. It's not that she wants to look at it all the time --- in fact, she _doesn't_, because it reminds her of that night with the geek, and Grace Polk does not waste any brain activity on thinking about geeks --- but it seems like a shame to keep it in a drawer or under her bed.

The geode catches the sun from the window, and in the morning a scattered pattern of geometric shapes appears on the ceiling, little trapezoids and parallelograms of light. Grace likes to lie in bed and watch them flicker and move. It's beautiful, and it keeps her entertained.

That's all, she tells herself. A rock is a rock is a rock.

If she repeats it enough, she thinks she might start believing it.

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**. crazy . **

Sometimes Joan worries about Judith. She knows Judith isn't crazy, not compared to Darlene the Hair Puller or Conduct Disorder Nat, but Judith acts out from time and time and does stuff that scares Joan.

Once, in the middle of Meditative Therapy, Judith gets out of her seat and sticks her hand over the flame of a candle. Joan screams, but Judith says, "It doesn't hurt, JoJo. It doesn't, trust me."

Joan changes Judith's bandages for her that night. "Don't do this to yourself," she begs. Without God, Joan only has Judith left, and Joan can't risk losing her either.

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**. stolen .**

You corner her in the bookstore, when there is nobody else around. In the poetry section, surrounded by all those pretty words, you close your mouth over hers and kiss her hard, catching her bottom lip with your teeth. So hard that you draw blood.

It is over as quickly as it starts, and you have taken her by such surprise that she barely registers what's happening when you let go.

"I'm telling my dad," she threatens, but you know she won't. Even if she does, there are several witnesses who can place you fifty miles away from Skylight Books at this moment.

"My apologies, Joan, I didn't mean to scare you," you tell her. "You know I'll never hurt you."

You remember the taste of her blood on your tongue.

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**. full .**

When Grace leaves for college, the Girardis are determined to weigh down her luggage with food. Who needs textbooks when one can have Mr. G's prizewinning lasagna instead?

"Here are sandwiches for the plane," Mrs. Girardi says, handing Grace a Tupperware container. "The cookies I've put in your bag, but don't eat them until you finish the sandwiches, all right?"

Luke and Joan go for the conventional snacks: licorice and bite-sized Snickers and jawbreakers that live up to their name.

These Girardis, Grace thinks, you can't escape them. They start with your stomach and work upwards, invading your thoughts, your dreams.

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(2/2)


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